A Harmless Flirt
by Qu-ko
Summary: She didn't get involved with with romance, ever. This is what Asuka told herself, running her hands through her hair after a day at work spent too spacey for her own good. [Jim/Asuka one-shot, with some Tenjoin sibling moments]


**A/N:** I love Jim and Asuka. I love Manjoume and Asuka too, and even Juudai and Asuka in certain, small doses. But Jim and Asuka is a favorite of mine, and it made me so sad how their interaction got glossed over in S3. I think their personalities would mesh wonderfully, and it'd give Jim some nice characterization if done right.

So I gave it a shot. A ~9,000 word long shot, but a shot nonetheless. I'm proud of the result, and I hope I can perhaps convert a few people in the process, hehehe. Let me know what you think! C:

Special thanks go out to my lovely, lovely beta reader, Random, who went full sensei mode on me and gave me some awesome tips. Thank you!

* * *

Asuka had made no secret that for a long time, particularly in high school when setting up for the future was especially now-or-never important, she was not interested in dating boys. (She was also not interested in dating girls either. Fubuki once found this out the hard way.)

Even if she was interested in any given _person_, it didn't mean she wanted to drop everything and start a committed relationship. It was getting increasingly difficult for Fubuki to rely on any of his usual friendly, not-at-all subtle play-suggestions anymore, a fact she was still proud of.

It felt like everyone they'd known at Duel Academia except Asuka herself was now not only out in the world, but barely able to be tacked down to one place for longer than maybe a month or two at a time. Manjoume, usually Fubuki's first choice and ever-favored candidate, was all over the place lately with the Pro Leagues. Ryou, Shou, Johan, and Edo (in order of preference) were all in the very same boat. And Juudai... well, the only way anyone knew what Juudai was doing was when he felt like making his presence known in one way or another. Him turning up anywhere people could actually keep track of him was an unpredictable, supernatural occurrence at best.

On a day that was otherwise perfectly normal, Fubuki must have decided he simply needed to start thinking outside the box. Or, Asuka supposed, he may have decided that much earlier. In fact, he may have had to, considering what happened after that.

"Jim's coming to the states." Fubuki delivered the breaking news helpfully at the door before he even had a chance to take his coat off and drop his bags on the stairs.

The bashing of pots and pans from the kitchen area of the house ceased, very suddenly, and a few moments later, she poked her head around the corner and met Fubuki's eyes with an indeterminate sharpness. "I- Excuse me?"

"Jim," he repeated, "is making a trip here. To this area."

"What for?" she asked. Fubuki noted she did not appear to be disgusted by the idea, so the all-important knee-jerk reaction test was a pass, at least.

"I have no idea. I heard it through the grapevine, so it could be work or vacation or anything in-between," he replied cheerily as he made his way past her into the kitchen, towards the fridge. Asuka gave him a sideways glance, then hooked a hand into his shirt collar from behind before he could make it very far.

"Hold it, niisan," she said, narrowing her eyes. "You can raid my fridge after you at least tell me why you were in such a hurry to announce that."

"You wound me, sister," Fubuki said with a sugarcoated fake pout to match his sugarcoated fake disappointed tone. Asuka knew then that he was up to something, _something_ she couldn't put her finger on. There was _intent_ in his tone, after all. It was becoming a game of who could follow their sibling's thought processes better. "He's a mutual friend, isn't he? Manjoume-kun is going to be in the area not too long after that, too, as it turns out."

Asuka released his shirt and wandered over to a row of cabinets elsewhere. "That doesn't actually answer my question..."

"I only told you because I thought you'd like to know, silly." Fubuki removed a chocolate bar and a bottle of water from the fridge, lazily rearranging the magnets on the freezer door when he was done snooping. He brought the end of the candy to his teeth and nipped at it gently, almost unthinkingly, scattering the letters into words - BUCKY LOVES ASURYN, spelled out slowly in block capitals faintly askew.

"I do, but you announced it with such a spring in your step that I wasn't sure." She sighed under her breath, realizing she barely had enough pasta to suffice for even just her at the moment, and instead weaved around her brother to take a microwave dinner out of the freezer.

He twisted the top off the water a moment later and took a long drink. "Ah, that was the problem, then. Should I announce it in melodramatic tears next time?"

"That'd make me even more nervous," she replied with a tiny smile, removing the plastic tray from the box and sticking it in the microwave. "Thank you, though. Give me the numbers and I'm sure we can arrange something."

"I can give you Jim's number, or even Manjoume-kun's," Fubuki suggested, moving slyly curved lips close to the bottle's neck again as he did. Having finished fooling around with the fridge magnets, he'd since fallen into one of the chairs at the table.

"I meant dates and times," she deadpanned, blonde hair falling around her face. "But... I suppose that would help, too. Come to think of it, I don't think I ever actually got Jim's number."

"I'd be happy to oblige, of course. On both of those counts." His hand dove into his pocket for his phone, but Asuka glared at him in protest. Seconds later, the microwave cut in, beeping with an air of finality.

"Don't make me play mother hen with you again about no electronics at the dinner table, niisan. Now, do you want the last mac and cheese, or chicken noodle soup?"

* * *

Once again, she'd found herself in a situation that served more to try her nerves than make her excited, courtesy of her lovely brother.

These things weren't _always_ Fubuki's fault. He might've been somewhat to blame for her decision to attend Duel Academia, on account of her inability to bear the thought of having lost him forever there, but even then, it had still been something she'd been considering on her own since at least second grade, back when the school had only started gaining publicity.

In this case, it was hardly Asuka's doing to arrange Jim staying with her and her brother in her house. Her current residence was already pressed for space as it was, even with a nocturnal roommate... but that also meant she couldn't suddenly backpedal on him and tell him it wouldn't work out, not when Fubuki had offered him her precious space for a while. And it would be kind of a lie, at that; it wasn't like she wasn't resourceful enough to at least find a way to move things around to make it work, or that she didn't want to help a friend out.

She reminded herself that if anything were to go wrong, she knew exactly who to fire the irritated glares at. Fubuki had reassured her numerous times that it wouldn't be trouble for any involved parties, but Asuka made sure to contact Jim directly instead of taking his word for it. Jim then eased her nerves, telling her he'd be providing completely for himself wherever humanly possible and then some, in a slightly apologetic tone she couldn't help but find a little endearing.

Asuka sighed, eying the pull-out bed in the living room with slight displeasure. There were only two proper bedrooms in the small house, chosen deliberately so as to cut down on rent for anything bigger – her sole roommate was only ever present when Asuka was asleep late at night or getting ready to run out the door early in the morning – but it also meant that there were a grand total of three beds in the entire place, including the small futon. Fubuki usually commandeered it when he visited, but it would have to be given to Jim for the time being.

As she crossed the room and opened the closet to haul out an extra set of sheets, Fubuki sauntered up to her, paused as if to consider something, and then let the whammy fly.

"You like him, don't you? Or at least want to know him a little better."

"What?" she snapped.

He deftly removed her phone from the side pocket of her pants, but Asuka reached out to seize it back from him with a "hey!" of protest. It was only after seeing his smirk as she defensively stuffed it back where it came from that she realized he'd let her catch him on purpose.

"You were fidgeting with your phone back in the airport terminal, like you were waiting for a call, and you couldn't tear your gaze away from it for more than a few seconds. Better yet, you didn't know you were doing it, which only happens when you're nervous about something. And then, you fumbled _spectacularly_ when it finally rang."

Asuka dropped the neatly folded sheets on the bed unceremoniously and then sighed. "Therefore, I must have a crush. Is that what you're trying to say?"

"You tell me," Fubuki said with a mysterious smile. They both joked all the time to their friends, in their own ways, about how Fubuki would wear his little sister down yet, and set her up happily with someone if it was the last thing he did.

Her life was overall pretty good, she decided in times like those. Now that she had graduated high school, found herself a steady pace out of college, and her (usually financially stable) brother visited on a regular basis, how could she help but be content? It was all she needed to be happy: she had a family where she meant something, a secure job on the horizon where she could be something... even peace and normalcy for a while. Sometimes, she wasn't entirely sure there was more to life than what she already had. Fubuki could go on and on about pure, fulfilling love all he wanted, but Asuka believed her happiness was what she made of it.

"But you know," he continued, "you really might make a good wife one day. I'm almost afraid we'll have to drag some poor man up to the altar at knife-point."

"What was that?" Asuka said, with a hint of threat to it, "If you'd rather make all the accommodations yourself..."

Fubuki rolled his eyes. "No, no. Maybe you should stay here and keep making the bed. If not, you'll probably try to go make dinner, and we don't want you burning water in front of today's special guest just yet."

That one earned him an indignant flush - an adorable one, he had to admit. Even a little nostalgic. "I– I've _never_ burned water!"

"Okay, just the pot then."

She hesitated for a moment, any show of anger already ruined by the pinkish tint on her face. "I was distracted, _one time_," she finally muttered, in a dignified tone, "and that was two whole years ago."

Her expression tried to prove he'd have to do better than that, but Fubuki just smiled disarmingly again. "I know, but I'm not sure if going from airplane food to microwave dinners is much of an improvement for him, anyway. And I'm not sure yet if cooking's on the list of wifely things you're good at, you know."

"Wifely... oh, _spare_ me. Whether or not it's 'wifely,' I absolutely can cook, no matter what you try to tell me-"

"Hey, Tomorrow Girl," a familiar voice called from the base of the stairs, "I never got the chance to thank you for that soup you made one time. You know, the one for Amon Garam's fancy party?" He grinned. "It was terrible."

Asuka shot him a look and countered, "Careful, or I'll make you eat more of it."

"If you want to talk about being considerate guests, here's your chance, baby sister," Fubuki sang as he sidled into the kitchen with leonine grace. "I'll be sure not to poison you two the first time!"

Jim snorted as he sauntered into the hallway. "I've been reduced to insulting a lady's culinary skills for conversation starters, huh?"

She smiled in spite of herself, finishing her job with the pull-out bed. "Well, I'm sure I still cook better than either of you do."

He fell back onto a nearby armchair that had been pushed off to the side. Asuka realized he must be terribly jetlagged; the world always felt strangely solid after one was in an airplane looking at nothing but a landscape of fluff and ocean for a long stretch, after all. There tended to be more than just a sense of detachment from gravity after getting off a long flight, but the first time she'd asked on the way back, Jim had been adamant about his "jetlag is a state of mind" mantra, waving it off placidly.

"You think so?" he inquired casually as another smile graced his lips, "What'll that mean if I'm actually pretty good at it?"

Asuka straightened up from smoothing the covers out one last time, looking mildly surprised. It must have been a result of having spent too much time around the banter of untamed, arrogant teenage-now-young-adult boys. Jim had never really been one of those boys; he was untamed, certainly, and capable of sarcasm, but never in the same abrasive way some of the others were, like Juudai or Manjoume.

"...Well, either my soup was good and you're a liar, or you're not actually that good at it and you're still a liar."

"I'll take the third option," Jim replied smartly, beaming all the while, "and say that it was neither of these. Your brother must have poisoned your soup when you weren't looking, in that case." She let out a breath, and Fubuki played along, chuckling suspiciously from the kitchen. Asuka looked back at Jim as if to respond, but he followed up. "Guess you lost your chance for revenge, though. Next time, maybe."

Asuka fought a smirk as she reached for the pillow she'd taken such great pains to place perfectly straight on the end of the mattress, with every intent of swatting him into submission for that smart remark. That, of course, was how the pillow fight began, and that was how the living room went from some semblance of organization to a mountainscape of tumbled sheets and scattered pillows that found their way out from the closet in due time.

* * *

The younger Tenjoin was largely a creature of routine, living her life mostly by a certain set of habits that were simple enough to notice for anyone who knew her well, and which also hadn't varied much since she was a child. She only started to break those patterns during high school, and with the change in routine came a change in character as well, subtle to all but one who knew her like he knew himself - her older brother.

"But Asuka," Fubuki complained in the scratchiest voice possible, "you took time off for that dinner date, didn't you? And you even booked my favorite place in the whole wide United States, on Restaurant Week to boot! Can't I just snap on my best cold mask and go with you anyway?!"

"No, you can't. Feel free to wear a surgical mask anyway, though, because if you get either myself _or_ Jim sick, you're going to be the one making the chicken soup later on."

He plunked down on the bed with a dramatic huff, like a child with a headcold being sent to his room regardless of his protests. The always-charming smirk was back in half a second, though. "I'll order ten bowls of extra-hot chicken soup for myself, and pay your entire tab," he offered in desperation.

"Niisan... the last thing anyone in this city needs is to get sick because of someone else. Even just you is still one too many." She gave him an apologetic smile instead. "I'll make another reservation the second you're not contagious anymore, all right?"

Fubuki shook his head slowly. "I know what you're thinking. So now Jim's going to be taking my clam chowder, lobsters, and crab cakes as well as space in my cute sister's even cuter little house?" He threw his hands up in the air. Asuka was hardly offended; that teasing look of his still had yet to melt away.

"We'll bring you back leftovers, and I promise you'll have first dibs on them." She began moving backwards out the door, as if he'd make a break for the door before she'd fully closed it. "If you don't stay in the house and relax, I might have to borrow their kitchen and bring back something I cooked _specially for you_."

Making a silent gag motion as she shut the door gently, Fubuki tuned his ears to listen to the indistinct buzzing of voices from beyond it, the footsteps that followed, and the eventual shutting of the front door. He vaulted off the bed to peer around the door and make sure the coast was clear. Faking sick was hard, even for him.

All was going according to plan. The only part that wasn't a dramatic act, he thought with an uncontainable grin, was the fact that he really had given up an _orgasmically_ good dinner for an even better cause.

Jim followed Asuka with fascination down the main thoroughfare, his attention divided between the stores around him with their fantastically unreal displays and Asuka's own body language, to try and figure out where she was headed. They weaved around small groups stopped to take photos, passed several restaurants in the process, and then stopped in a long but steadily moving line of people.

Something occurred to him as he listened to her finally approach the woman behind the desk to receive their buzzer.

"Huh. Your English is pretty good."

The seats designed for peak hour standby were all full and then some, with kids sitting in parents' laps and some even going as far as to inch onto any unfilled gaps near the edges. Asuka blinked at him in surprise, finding a place to lean against the wall in the meantime. "You think so? Thank you. English is your native language, isn't it?"

"Of course it is, Tomorrow Girl," Jim answered, in much smoother-sounding English compared to his Japanese. Much like he could tell Asuka's English was learned, she could hear the same in his Japanese, through slightly funny pronunciations and occasionally questionable sentence structure. Up until now, they'd been speaking almost exclusively Japanese around one another – and, she realized with a pang of guilt, he'd probably refrained from saying anything out of courtesy to the one generously hosting him.

"Jim, you don't have to keep speaking Japanese just for my sake, you know. I'm fine with English; we're in New York, after all."

"No problem!" he replied, again in that same lazy-but-fluent English, and then switched back to Japanese again despite her protests. "When you put it that way, maybe it'll be easier for me to help you out instead, if you ever need it. You sound good, but it's tough being in a foreign country."

Asuka caught him speaking out of experience there; Duel Academia, the central branch, always attracted a handful of foreign students every year, but the situation was reversed there: plenty of the staff couldn't speak English on anything better than a very basic level. Out of the four branch school champions that had arrived in the beginning of their third year, Amon struck her as the most skilled at Japanese, oddly enough. O'Brien followed after him, and then Johan, who had occasionally had his own moments of trouble. (Luckily, the one he hung around with most was equally as word-dumb, so it evened out as far as she could tell.)

But Jim, despite seeming the least proficient at Japanese, still managed to make himself understood all the same. In fact, she concluded, the way he'd often pepper in English phrases where he didn't know the proper term, or was too lazy to dredge it up from memory, was sort of charming. In a school overflowing with oddities, it was a little refreshing at the time.

...Plus the fact he had Karen, too, but even carrying around a live crocodile on his back still didn't quite break even in her mind with the sheer ridiculousness of her closer friends.

"Help me out?" she repeated, a bit confounded. "That's nice of you, and I appreciate it, but I'll be fine. Just, please don't think you need to make _that_ many changes... use whatever's more comfortable for you, I insist."

"In that case," Jim said, "I'll keep on like this, if that's okay with you. I'm fine if you're fine!"

"I'll take your word for it, then." A pause fell, until Asuka decided to keep the ball rolling. "Anyway..."

While waiting for the buzzer to go off, they continued to talk about everything; from the weather in any and all of their respective locations, to whether certain duelists would make it far in the Pro Leagues that year, to their personal lives and the goings-on of their families. She was delighted to find how well they got along – mutually and right off the bat, for a change – and was even more pleased to know that he had no reservations about using humor around her without going over the top. The lattermost topic even reminded Asuka of Karen before Jim even thought to mention her, and he seemed surprised at her genuine curiosity. Eventually, he explained that, although he normally brought her everywhere even when it meant taking the long and roundabout ways of traveling to do it, it didn't seem suitable to bring her in this case - it would be too difficult to accommodate her here. Karen was a tough girl, he declared proudly, so Jim had made the difficult decision to leave her in the care of one of his most trusted colleagues who ran a shelter and rehabilitation facility for injured and abandoned wild animals.

"It wouldn't be very fair to you or her," he admitted, more dejectedly than he wanted to let on. It struck Asuka like a little boy trying to talk around the fact he _really_ wanted to use the swing at the playground when they were all taken.

"Next time you come, you can bring her too," Asuka reassured him. "I'll make sure it can work, even if I have to pull some strings to do it. And besides, if you have to put up with Fubuki-niisan, there's no reason Karen shouldn't be invited as well."

Jim relaxed, a great smile spreading across his features. "It's not 'putting up with' at all. It's great you understand, actually. Sounds like she could make a great lady friend for once!"

But afterward, by the time they were finally seated, the conversation had dwindled. Asuka wondered briefly if topics had been exhausted, until Jim offered her a surprisingly candid new conversation choice.

"You know, lately I think Juudai and Johan have been dating, or something. Officially, for what that's worth for them."

She stopped herself from choking on the ice water she'd been sipping just in time to reply with a noncommittal, "You don't say." She must have looked conflicted, judging by the sympathetic way Jim smiled at her.

"I can't tell if you're even surprised or not," he pointed out with a small laugh. Asuka rolled her eyes, less at Jim's teasing than at the aforementioned boys. (Men, actually, but sometimes it was hard to tell when their ability to act their age apparently depended on the time of day, the phase of the moon, and a whimsical deific dice roll.)

"Not really. It's hard to tell with those two... I don't think they have the same idea of personal relations as the rest of us. But if that's true, then I'm," she paused, just a little too tellingly for her liking, "happy for them, if they can make it work." But she felt her cheeks bloom a little despite her inner admonishments, and lowered her gaze self-consciously.

_No, no, no, no, no, no, stop it._ Asuka tried to direct herself away from thoughts of "even if it had been," because going down that road would only be trouble where she didn't need any more of it.

Jim took a slow drink of his water, and she caught the dip of his Adam's apple as he swallowed. Silence reigned again for a few seconds, and then he cleared his throat and said, "Sounds like things are a little rocky right now, but once they get over the bumps, they'll figure something out. I gotta say, though... I could never do that."

"Do what?" For a moment, she thought she heard a peculiar note in Jim's voice. A little like envy, actually.

"What they do. They kind of got where they are in reverse order, you know? Marriage first, romance and dating after." Jim paused, fishing for the right words. "Not marriage, but- well, it's not hard to think about. I have a hunch it was more like, uh..." he lowered his voice confidentially, followed by an awkward beat, "sex first, marriage second, and then romance and dating."

"Wh- What gave _that _away?" Asuka exclaimed, reddening at the subject matter even though she'd just made it sound like it was the most obvious conclusion in the world.

To her astonishment, he only grinned mischievously at her. The answer he had in mind wasn't what she'd been expecting. "O'Brien mentioned it to me first, actually. For such a straight and narrow guy, he has an astonishingly good sense of what people like in bed. I don't even think he knows about it himself." Leaning his chin on one hand and smiling, he added casually, "It'd be a great skill, if it weren't so useless!"

"You make it sound like this has happened before." She was unable to make the blush on her face go away, so she settled for steepling her hands together and resting her nose against them, continuing to make eye contact to reinforce that she was listening all the while.

"Hah. Well, 'fraid that part's a secret, Tomorrow Girl!"

"Ah... what do you-" As Asuka looked up to ask a question, the waiter came around to inquire about their orders. She apologized and sent him away after realizing they'd both gotten so absorbed in their discussion that the menus had gone almost completely untouched since they sat down. When her face stayed unusually warm throughout dinner, the only reasonable explanation was for her to blame it on the crowded environment and the heated room.

* * *

Unfortunately, that wasn't the last time it happened. In the following two weeks, there were several incidents afterward.

Among other things, Jim (and Fubuki, somehow) kept picking ambiguously dirty turns of phrasing. Once, she accidentally fell asleep against him while she was exhausted from work. Another time, she walked in on him getting out of the shower; when Fubuki asked smarmily if she were sick after she flared up like a rocket, she tried bringing her hands to her cheeks to cool them down somehow. Naturally, it didn't work.

She didn't get involved with with romance, ever. This is what Asuka told herself, running her hands through her hair after a day at work spent too spacey for her own good. Her mind and her heart scolded her, but for entirely different reasons. Jim wasn't in now; he'd been avoiding her somehow, subtly, but she'd been spending enough time with him to know when he was avoiding her at this point.

Fubuki had been acting suspicious, too. He left a note on the table saying he was going out shopping. For what, she couldn't possibly fathom, since he never needed to go shopping while he was staying with her. She was too responsible to ever let things get to the point where he'd have to go instead of her, for anything other than his own personal needs.

Asuka started to move towards the shower, but wound up feeling too exhausted to make it up the stairs, so instead she collapsed on the couch cushions. It wasn't like she had to move anymore today if she didn't want to, but it seemed like such a waste. What else was there to do? Curling up on the armchair after a shower, reading a book sounded nice...

The apartment felt empty. Certainly, she needed peace, but not this kind of peace.

...Maybe it wasn't surprising that she liked Jim a lot more now. Maybe she did want to pursue a deeper relationship with him. Fubuki probably knew it, too, although hell if she'd ever admit to his face he was right about her for a change. This was a much better situation to call her "first crush" than her _actual_ first crush, at least, which Fubuki thankfully didn't seem too keenly aware of.

Asuka stood up, not knowing why, and walked slowly to the archway. Almost immediately, she heard the door hinges squeal and spotted Jim coming back in.

She felt her eyes prickle. It was stupid. Asuka didn't have a clue what was going on with herself anymore.

"Tomorrow Girl!" Jim noticed,_ damn it all_, and stepped toward her. She readied herself for physical contact, but it never happened. He stopped a generous distance away from her, trying instead to meet her eyes. "Are you okay? What happened?"

She gritted her teeth. "I... I twisted my ankle." It baffled her why she would lie about it to him, not even realizing what had come out of her mouth until long after it had been said. Apparently, anything was preferable to confessing that she loved him enough to_ cry_ about it at that point. How embarrassing.

Jim bit his lip, murmuring, "Woah, woah, easy." His arms caught her as she inexplicably toppled forward, and her nerves set on edge. He was holding her like he was afraid to be touching her, and she wondered if he thought maybe she was angry or offended by how she stiffened at the contact.

"Sit down, I'll go get some ice," he told her, and headed away to the kitchen.

Asuka sat, utterly defeated, sliding her hands over the fabric of the couch. She leaned her head against the back and closed her eyes. It was strange how sometimes, she really did miss the peacefulness of the days at Duel Academia, back when they never had to worry about cosmic horrors and the looming threat of any number of worlds ending, just being on time for class, killing free time at Osiris Red, and wondering whether or not everyone would be sleeping in their assigned rooms at any given time like they were supposed to. (She broke that last rule quite thoroughly.)

She nearly jumped out of her skin when Jim's cold hands wrapped gingerly around her foot. He was sitting on the coffee table when she looked at him, grabbing an ice cube with his bare hands and dragging it delicately around her ankle. It was cold, and her toes curled.

"I couldn't find anything to wrap it in. Sorry," he tacked on, apologizing in English.

"That's fine," she croaked out. Jim stopped, glancing up at her. The ice block had quickly melted, and by now he was just dragging wet fingers across her ankle. He couldn't have _not_ noticed... he couldn't have.

He was doing it on purpose.

It must not have mattered very much to her, Asuka thought, because she reclined back against the couch and melted in the attention like the ice before her. Suddenly, the unseasonal spring heat was making her drowsy, but she didn't know if she should fall asleep. She was still sticky, after all.

"Your ankle isn't twisted, you know," Jim murmured softly after a while, giving her leg an affectionate little tap before removing his hands. An ironic smile played upon his face.

"Ah..."

So that was it. He was amused. He'd just decided to play along anyway, because... because... Well, she couldn't come up with a good justification for not calling her lie immediately if he'd known from the beginning.

Asuka heard light baritone chuckling off to the side. She whipped her head around, flushing deeply, and favored Fubuki with a look so startled and guilty it was downright comical. Suddenly, she remembered what position she was in here, so she sprang up and bolted up the stairs.

_I can't believe him. This is his entire fault for inviting him in the first place,_ she thought, livid.

Fubuki heard the bathroom door close upstairs, and gave Jim a long look.

* * *

Somehow, breakfast the next morning managed to go over without issue. There was no awkwardness, and by some miracle, Fubuki had yet to make any sort of stupid, ill-placed comment about her and Jim. This was possibly because he was busy shoveling a special Sunday morning omelet Asuka had made for him into his mouth, but it was as good a reason as any to her.

In the absence of conversation with her brother, she instead shared pleasantries with Jim, and found she was never more thankful for his easygoing personality than she was at that moment. Things had been getting unbearably clumsy and uncomfortable up until this morning, but now she could talk with him just as easily as the day he came.

It was a nice thing to wake up to in the morning.

"You say that like it doesn't lose its appeal once you live near everything. I don't really like visiting the tourist attractions on my days off, actually. It's terrible having to weave around people stopping to take pictures."

Jim raised an eyebrow. "Have you ever been to Times Square?"

"Once," Asuka said. "Never again. I like being able to walk without being crammed into a mob of people on all sides. Tourist attractions have never been my thing, anyway." She stabbed a tomato on her plate with her fork. "Like at Duel Academia, we went to Domino City on a field trip in my second year, but it's... sort of fuzzy. For such a historic place, it must not have been very memorable."

That was only partially a lie. She must have been under the Light's control at that time, like Juudai told her, but she swore she remembered the famous clock tower square, and small moments of riding around in a limousine, for some reason...

"Funny thing, coming from the one who couldn't get enough of that Battle City DVD she got for Christmas when she was eight," came the smart response from Fubuki from across the table.

"Niisan..." she intoned.

"Did you watch it live?" Jim asked. "I gotta admit, when I heard about it, I did some... uh, surgery on a television I picked up to see if I could tune in, too. I wound up buying it on DVD when that failed."

"We did watch it live! It's one of my fondest memories." Asuka said earnestly. "Niisan and I would huddle in front of the television and root for our favorites, and then try and figure out who to cheer for once they got knocked out."

Fubuki hummed. "Jounouchi lasted a round longer than Mai, at least."

"And then we both wound up cheering for Yuugi when they both were knocked out. Now hush."

"Heh, conversations sure do change," Jim noted, resting his cheek into the palm of his hand. "I asked because I wanted to know if you- either of you wanted to go out and do something today." Judging by how his eyes lingered on Asuka, it was clear Jim's train of though hadn't originally lay with Fubuki.

Disinterest and disgust descended on her without warning. She felt very cold, all of a sudden, when she saw Fubuki meeting his gaze in return.

"I," she tried, sounding too self-conscious to possibly be convincing, "I actually had plans today... Sorry, I really am. Can we see about doing it tomorrow, or Tuesday?"

"Sure thing," Jim replied, with a smile so genuine that Asuka found herself far more stricken than she'd expected. She pushed her chair in and excused herself from the table.

An hour later, when Asuka reached for the knob, the door refused to open. She felt herself color when, after a small moment of panic, she remembered that _she_ was the one who locked it. She peered outside, feeling even more foolish when no one but Fubuki turned his eyes from the pages of a book up to her. He was the picture of relaxation, sitting on the floor and sipping from a glass of lemonade.

"Do you need more time?" he asked, voice tinted with worry in that bittersweet tone of voice only he has.

"...No," Asuka replied, trying to shrink and failing.

"We should talk," Fubuki insisted.

"Why? So you can push Jim onto me? So you can tell me I shouldn't have refused him because he's just trying to be nice, and I should get a date, and I can't stay single forever even if I want to? Forget it."

She immediately regretted her small tirade when she saw her brother's expression. It was that pained one he used when he loosened the cheerful-Fubuki mask just enough to let the ugly truth underneath show through; it wouldn't have been apparent to just anyone. The sensation that maybe she was making a mistake, had _already_ made a mistake began to sink in, which only made her dig her heels in further. Asuka turned her head, crossed her arms, and grimaced.

Fubuki grabbed the glass with his left hand, closed the book with his right, and stood up carefully.

"I'm sorry," she said, "that was cruel of me."

"No wonder you get all the guys," he teased, but sounded too hollow, "they must fall to your feet with that attitude."

"Where they belong," she muttered, in what might have been a joke. "I'm serious, niisan. There's a reason I don't date. At least part of it is because your taste in men is much, much different from mine." _What's the other part, then?_ she wondered to herself, but quickly squashed that line of thought before it could grow and ruin her resolve. "And besides, I'm already frustrated about other things, so I really would rather not-"

"Asuka," Fubuki whispered gently, in a way she hadn't heard since the day he'd really and truly returned to her side years ago, "you can't tell?"

She obviously couldn't, or maybe she just had no idea what he was talking about, because she regarded him with quizzical, round-eyed surprise.

"I think you've spent so long digging your heels in because it was me that you didn't stop to look at the people around you."

"Digging my...? Niisan, every time you found a boy who you thought I might even have a shred of interest in, you tried to shove him at me on a silver platter!"

"No, I didn't. You think that's what I did, but it isn't. You haven't really looked at them."

"What does that have to do with anything? I don't need to look at them, because I wouldn't only look for pretty faces even if I was seeking something like that!"

"Are you sure you don't? What if I told you most of them came to me first? Would their faces look the same to you?"

"What are you _talking _about?"

"Do you know exactly what happened with Manjoume-kun, during that one love duel?"

_Stop thinking asking more questions counts as an answer to my questions,_ she hissed at him inwardly, bristling. "You noticed Manjoume-kun had a crush on me, so you stepped in because you felt it was your sworn duty to try and hook him up with me, and encouraged him to have a love duel with m-"

"Asuka, Jim asked me to. So did Manjoume. Everyone who I've ever tried to set you up with asked me to help them."

The rest of the statement subsided in Asuka's throat. Her gaze dropped for a moment, resting awkwardly on whatever wasn't her brother's eyes while she tried to reconcile that with her version of the facts. "They... what?"

Fubuki leaned against the wall calmly. "Manjoume-kun asked me to help him. A lot of it was his own idea, I just helped him make it happen. I didn't do anything but give him some cards. He's pretty idealistic when it comes to love, you know." He grinned brilliantly. "You've got things backwards, sis. I didn't tell you Jim was coming here because I wanted to shove you two together and hope for the best. What kind of matchmaker would I be then?"

Tenjoin Asuka stared at her sibling in complete shock. "I..."

"I wasn't _really _lying about hearing it through the grapevine, silly. He came to me about getting back in touch with you all on his own. I only ever helped Manjoume-kun out because I knew he was sincere, and it's the same with Jim. I'd never leave my precious baby sister with just anyone, you see!" He opened his hands and placed them gently around hers. "Why force love on people when it's so much more fulfilling to help grow what's already there?"

She knew the shameful realization must have been plain on her face, because Fubuki was gazing at her with warmth spread all over his elegant features. She had nothing to say for a moment or two, but eventually found herself comfortably nestled in his arms when he pulled her in.

"You're definitely a one-of-a-kind person, niisan," Asuka murmured half-sarcastically into his shoulder. Her breath tickled the hair at the nape of his neck. "Thank you."

"I don't ever tell you enough. You're my biggest pride, Asuka. But I think you could stand to let yourself care more about people _romantically_ without sacrificing who you are. Love is a strength, not a weakness! And it'd be pretty nice to see you with one of our mutual friends, but-" Fubuki winked at her, and she groaned so loudly her chest vibrated, "-don't do anything because you feel like you're being told to. Even if it's you doing the telling. Love's about doing what you want, not what you think you should!"

He patted her shoulder and whirled her around, nudging at her lower back. Asuka made a small, surprised noise, but shook her head and started down the stairs. "Go live a little, silly girl," he drawled at her.

"If this fails, it's going to be your fault," she threatened, conveniently ignoring the fact this entire conversation had taken place in the hallway, in possible earshot of certain other people, rather than safely in her room. Her pride had fallen back into place once more. Maybe going would make herself feel better about having rejected Manjoume so thoroughly all those times...

"If this fails, I promise you can punch me in the face as hard as you can as punishment."

That was a serious threat for him. He must have been confident in his hand, so to speak. Asuka wasn't sure if she'd like it better if this... this _whatever it was_ went somewhere feasible for once, or if it crashed hard enough to warrant reassembling her brother's stupidly handsome face.

"All right, one more question, while we're on the topic. What about the idol gig?"

"What, I needed a reason for that?" Fubuki said, voice cracking with almost-laughter. "Am I not allowed to think my adorable, gorgeous sister and my handsome, charming self would make a show-stopping singing duo? You'd be making more money that way, anywa-"

She kicked him in the shin.

* * *

"So, you still haven't told me. Where are we going?"

Jim shrugged, fixing his eyes out the window of the train, avoidant. Asuka stared at him from the side for a while, but he didn't budge. Eventually, she gave up and turned forward.

This was because Fubuki told her it was a good idea. She loved Fubuki. She would do anything for her brother.

She was going to humor Fubuki. Really, she was.

Really.

...Humoring him definitely didn't mean she couldn't be anxious, though.

Asuka stared out the opposite window, mesmerized by the lights zipping by in the thick darkness of the tunnel. The train creaked into another station, and the automated recording droned with artificial cheer in the background.

"Jim..." she started.

"I told you, right? We're going on an adventure." He grinned as he stood up and threaded an arm through hers.

She later found out "adventure" was code for "I don't really know, but we'll find something cool, I guess." The day was strange, but all the same, she couldn't not enjoy it. It turned out to be the opposite of all the copious sentiment she was used to on her few past dates, but that was the nice thing about it.

They started at a tiny little hole-in-the-wall Chinese place. It barely had four tables crammed on the small floor total, but the food was excellent. She'd have to file away this place for later patronage.

"What'd you end up getting?"

"Kung pao chicken."

Jim yawned. "Bit spicy, isn't it?"

"I'm fine with spicy. It's sour I really can't stand. Citrus fruits..." Asuka trailed off, making a face.

Jim stole a piece of chicken out of her container and dropped it into his mouth. It was tea-smoky, the kind of hot that lingered in the back of the throat like perfume lingered in the nose.

"You could have gotten your own instead of taking my lunch," she said, poking him in the sleeve with the business end of her chopsticks.

"Careful, I have a fork," Jim said with good-natured humor, then chased a mushroom around his carton quietly for a moment. "What kind of poor Australian bloke has to use a fork in a Chinese restaurant? I don't even belong in this country, anyway."

"Where do you belong, then?" Asuka asked, her voice having mellowed into a thoughtful murmur. Maybe that wasn't the word he'd mean to use?

He smiled, tipping his chair onto its back legs like a schoolboy. As mild and gentlemanly as he could be, he was subject to some childish mannerisms sometimes. "Not where. With who. And that's with Karen, and my friends."

The wistful smile on his face made Asuka wonder just how conflicted with part of that statement he must have been to bite his lip the way he did.

Dinner was followed up by a spur-of-the-moment ducking into a cheap theater with old projectors and speakers like crackling cellophane, playing mostly cheesy B-list horror movies. Asuka breathed an audible sigh of relief when he told her he was okay with horror if she was.

"These movies," she declared immediately after the credits started rolling following a patently unsatisfying and rushed ending, "they try too hard to tell us what's supposed to be creepy. That ruins the whole mood. It's all just force-fed to you, to make you think there's a mood."

Jim whistled. "I'm impressed, Tomorrow Girl. That was harsh." Asuka looked a little taken aback, causing him to amend himself. "No, no. It's refreshing. You know what you're talking about."

"As a consumer, maybe. I'm only a teacher, after all." She was bathed in orange light as the two of them stepped outside; it was strong enough to warm her skin through the crisp spring air. Asuka continued on, not knowing why her brain-to-mouth filter had dissipated so suddenly. "I don't have much to offer the world outside of my mind, but I'm proud of who I am anyway."

Jim cast her a lingering look, then glanced around as though looking for something. Asuka matched his curious expression.

"Doubt there's any good hills around here..." he muttered, disappointed, and then perked back up when an idea struck him. "Will a rooftop do?"

"You'd have to climb up one of the fire escapes. Which is trespassing. And illegal," she reminded him. Still, the more she thought about it, the less daunting it seemed. It was Fubuki who told her to live a little, and if she was going to really live, she may as well go the whole way while she had the chance.

Jim shrugged nonchalantly and said, "We're on an adventure, aren't we?" Before she knew it, he'd pulled the nearest fire escape ladder down with one quick jerk. The hinges squealed in protest, and rust-colored water spattered a beat onto the metal landing they were standing on.

A gust of wind knocked them as they climbed, and Asuka involuntarily shrieked.

"Gets your heart racing, doesn't it?" Jim asked, catching her hand as he climbed the remaining few feet up the ladder. "Come on. I want to show you something." The roof was gently sloped and paved over with wet, pebbly blacktop; he crawled carefully to the highest point and pointed out to the horizon.

"Did we come up here to see a sunset? Now we're actually getting into cheesy territory," Asuka said. The feeling of being a bad person for illegally using someone's fire escape to climb up to the roof on an otherwise perfectly legal date lingered. "You're just full of surprises."

Jim smiled innocently. "Well, I try to keep some surprises up my sleeve. Gotta keep you from getting bored, after all."

"I should tell you off for thinking such a thing."

"No, Tomorrow Girl," he corrected with a grin, "I'm proving a point. Look."

She was intrigued enough by that to join him at the crease of the roof, following his gaze over the city proper. "It's Manhattan."

"It's your Manhattan."

"...I'm afraid you've lost me."

"I could've asked Juudai to drop by, instead," Jim began tentatively, then took a moment to figure out exactly how he wanted to phrase his thoughts. "Isn't he something? Juudai lives in a strange world, just like you. Everyone has a different world. Mine's always involved nothing but the Earth, and dueling was always just a pastime for me..."

"But you're the champion of South School," Asuka protested, "you beat out thousands of other students who have much more riding on their skill. That must say something positive, right?"

"No." He was starting to pepper his sentences with that playful smattering of English words again. "Didn't you say your mind is the only thing people value in you?" He paused, deciding it was close enough to count. "You know, Tomorrow Girl, you really did light your own stage, like you say in a duel. Even Juudai... he tripped in the dark."

Jim raised a hand to fidget with the bandages around his right eye. Asuka felt herself fidget, too.

"Juudai... I'm glad he found his way eventually."

"But he could never outshine you."

"...Huh?" _Oh._ Her stomach fluttered. She felt herself turning some complicated shades of red, which Jim only seemed to take as affirmation.

"Ah, he told you, didn't he?"

"Jim, I..." Even the crickets around them seemed to pause for breath.

Asuka felt the warmth of his hand on hers, flowing from her fingertips into her whole body. She felt a few of the lonely shards in her heart budged.

"Juudai is amazing," he said, "too amazing. But being with you and Fubuki made me realize that I... I think I'd like a world like yours, too."

Without warning, feelings started to boil in Asuka's throat, clutching desperately at her tongue to keep from sliding back to where she wanted them.

"I like you a lot, Asuka. I felt awful about losing touch with you. I know you turned Manjoume down, but would you be willing to try with me?"

Her fingers curled into her palms and rested there, clutching at the mistakes of her romantic life. She thought of Juudai and Manjoume, opened her mouth once, twice. Manjoume had been utterly ruined for her not only by Fubuki, but by her own repression and terrible, terrible adherence to first impressions. And Juudai... he had frayed her idea of perfection by showing her the fragility and terror behind the hero, and god help her, it had been the thing that had made her let him get away despite it all.

Did she, _could _she really care about Jim enough to reach back out?

_Stop it,_ said the small fragment of romantic Tenjoin blood that Fubuki must have hogged, _You're lying to yourself. You could love him. Get used to it._

"Let's climb down," Asuka whispered, taking one last look at the skyline shimmering faintly in late dusk before reaching for the ladder, trying to keep it from banging around too much. Jim tried to put back the nonchalant look he'd been wearing before, but his good eye still showed hurt and disappointment like a window.

In one moment, Jim saw her smile at him from the ground. The next, once his second boot had touched the pavement, he was immediately thankful he had a brick wall to his back as she grabbed his shoulders. He'd scarcely been so thankful for anything in his entire life, except maybe the Orichalcum Eye. She raised her head, glinting eyes meeting Jim's good eye, looking at him while he tried not to choke on the moment, and-

"I... All right. I'll do it. But if I go back to thinking _all_ boys suck, I won't wait to bail out, understand?"

She kissed him.

Well, that certainly hadn't been what he was expecting. Jim took a moment to catch and hold her lips giddily. It felt... nice, she let herself think in the aftermath.

From around the corner, Fubuki whirled on the balls of his feet and strode away from the scene of the crime.

"That's my girl," he said with an enormous grin.


End file.
